"He opened the second seal...another horse, fiery red, went out... it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another...." (Rev. 6:3)
The “next big thing” in the news may well be war with Iran. Few want it, many warn against it and many more will suffer if it comes to pass. How can we forestall it? (NB: see Post #1 and go from there; see bottom of page.)
"War is the unfolding of miscalculations." (Barbara Tuchman)

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Post #255 - How Many Times Does Opportunity Knock?

Nick Kristof, writing for the New York Times several
years ago. (April 29, 2007) gave a good description of the lost opportunity
that we are still paying for today.

Diplomacy at Its Worst

By Nicholas D. Kristof

In May 2003, Iran sent a secret proposal to the U.S. for settling our mutual
disputes in a "grand bargain."

It is an astonishing document, for it tries to address a range of U.S. concerns
about nuclear weapons, terrorism and Iraq. I've placed it and related documents
(including multiple drafts of it) on my blog,

Hard-liners in the Bush administration killed discussions of a deal, and interviews
with key players suggest that was an appalling mistake. There was a real hope
for peace; now there is a real danger of war.

Scattered reports of the Iranian proposal have emerged previously, but if you
read the full documentary record you'll see that what the hard-liners killed
wasn't just one faxed Iranian proposal but an entire peace process.

The record indicates that officials from the repressive, duplicitous government
of Iran pursued peace more energetically and diplomatically than senior Bush
administration officials — which makes me ache for my country.

The process began with Afghanistan in 2001-2. Iran and the U.S., both opponents
of the Taliban, cooperated closely in stabilizing Afghanistan and providing
aid, and unofficial "track two" processes grew to explore opportunities
for improved relations.

On the U.S. side, track two involved well-connected former U.S. ambassadors,
including Thomas Pickering, Frank Wisner and Nicholas Platt. The Iranian
ambassador to the U.N., Javad Zarif, was a central player, as was an
Iranian-American professor at Rutgers, Hooshang Amirahmadi, who heads a
friendship group called the American Iranian Council.

At a dinner the council sponsored for its board at Ambassador Zarif's home in
September 2002, the group met Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi.
According to the notes of Professor Amirahmadi, the foreign minister told the
group, "Yes, we are ready to normalize relations," provided the U.S.
made the first move.

This was shaping into a historic opportunity to heal U.S.-Iranian relations,
and the track two participants discussed further steps, including joint
U.S.-Iranian cooperation against Saddam Hussein. The State Department and
National Security Council were fully briefed, and in 2003 Ambassador Zarif met
with two U.S. officials, Ryan Crocker and Zalmay Khalilzad, in a series of
meetings in Paris and Geneva.

Encouraged, Iran transmitted its "grand bargain" proposals to the
U.S. One version was apparently a paraphrase by the Swiss ambassador in Tehran;
that was published this year in The Washington Post.

But Iran also sent its own master text of the proposal to the State Department
and, through an intermediary, to the White House. I've also posted that
document, which Iran regards as the definitive one.

In the master document, Iran talks about ensuring "full transparency"
and other measures to assure the U.S. that it will not develop nuclear weapons.
Iran offers "active Iranian support for Iraqi stabilization." Iran also
contemplates an end to "any material support to Palestinian opposition
groups" while pressuring Hamas "to stop violent actions against
civilians within" Israel (though not the occupied territories). Iran would
support the transition of Hezbollah to be a "mere political organization
within Lebanon" and endorse the Saudi initiative calling for a two-state
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Iran also demanded a lot, including "mutual respect," abolition of sanctions,
access to peaceful nuclear technology and a U.S. statement that Iran did not
belong in the "axis of evil." Many crucial issues,
including verification of Iran's nuclear program, needed to be hammered out. It's
not clear to me that a grand bargain was reachable, but it was definitely worth
pursuing — and still is today.

Instead, Bush administration hard-liners aborted the process. Another round of
talks had been scheduled for Geneva, and Ambassador Zarif showed up — but not
the U.S. side. That undermined Iranian moderates.

A U.S.-Iranian rapprochement could have saved lives in Iraq, isolated Palestinian
terrorists and encouraged civil society groups in Iran. But instead the U.S.
hard-liners chose to hammer plowshares into swords.